1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an image processing apparatus and a method of controlling the apparatus.
2. Description of the Related Art
Wireless LAN techniques, such as IEEE 802.11b/11g/11n, have been adopted by various products, and become very familiar to most users. Because the wireless LAN techniques realize wireless connection between apparatuses that have conventionally been connected by wires, and set users free from problems such as limited installation places of apparatuses or complicatedly tangled cables, the techniques are extremely useful and convenient. Because of these advantages, many homes and offices have wireless LAN access points, and are increasingly constructing wireless LAN environments with a plurality of wireless-LAN-incorporated products and their access points.
In a wireless LAN access point, it is possible to set security for protecting communication and a unique ID called SSID for identifying the access point. These must be set by a user in advance. In wireless LAN environment, even though a wireless LAN connection is established once, wireless LAN connection errors occur when an access point setting is changed or when the wireless LAN communication state worsens. Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2007-288550 discloses automatic changing of communication speed at an access point when a wireless LAN connection error is caused by a worsened wireless LAN communication state. In addition, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2003-333271 discloses setting the most appropriate waiting time for determination of a communication time-out error.
When a setting of a wireless LAN's access point is changed, a connection error occurs in the products that are connected to the access point through the wireless LAN. The error includes, for instance, an error caused by different security setting, an error caused by different encoding systems, an error caused by incorrect setting of WPA/WPA2 PSK, authentication failure of a shared key, failure of open authentication, and so forth. When such an error occurs, a user needs to perform wireless LAN setting on the product side that is connected through the wireless LAN. However, if a user tries to utilize, for instance, the electronic mail transmission function or print function through the wireless LAN transmission/reception function without knowing that there is a connection error, the user falls into a state in which these functions are not available.
Furthermore, when a transmission error is caused by a connection error in the transmission function, transmission retries are performed until time-out is reached. However, the connection error cannot be overcome unless a wireless LAN setting is changed; therefore, such transmission retries are pointless. Moreover, when the transmission retries fail, the transmission data is discarded. Therefore, even if the connection error is overcome, the transmission data does not reach the destination, and this causes poor usability.
Furthermore, the transmission retries performed because of a transmission error in the transmission function do not take a worsened wireless LAN communication state into consideration. Therefore, the timing of transmission retries is not appropriate.